Daniel 8:15 Commentary and Bible Study

Daniel is struggling to understand, turning over what he has seen in his mind, but unsure of its meaning. God had given to him and his three friends ‘knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom’, and to Daniel in particular ‘understanding in all visions and dreams’ (Daniel 1:17), but he cannot fully understand this vision without an interpretation. ‘There stood before me as the appearance of a man.’ It is an angel as it turns out, the angel Gabriel, just in case we might think he is describing a theophany. But why now does the angel appear as a man? There are some clues in the passage to this. The effect of this vision on Daniel was so tremendous it made him quite ill. It overwhelmed him and overpowered him entirely. It shocked him to the core, and perhaps therefore the angel is given to appear as a man out of sympathy. Some humanity is brought into this to comfort him, to console him so that the explanation is easier to perceive; that may be the reason. It is Gabriel. As E J Young reminds us, there are only two angels named in the Old Testament and they are both in the Book of Daniel: Gabriel and Michael. Gabriel receives a command by another who is not named but whose voice come from between the banks of the river, over the water. This is surely God speaking to Gabriel, and the interpretation, though delivered by an angel, is from the Lord who alone knows the future and what shall arise according to his eternal purpose.So he came near where I stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision. ¹⁸ Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a deep sleep on my face toward the ground: but he touched me, and set me upright. ‘And when he came, I was afraid,’ – even though Gabriel appears as a man, Daniel is in a highly susceptible vulnerable state – ‘and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end shall be the vision.’ At the time of the end – what did he mean? Was he speaking about the end of the waiting time for Messiah? Or was he speaking about the end of the world? What is the vision for? Well we might be inclined to say – because there is much evidence for this in the passage – of course, it is for the end of the time of the waiting period for the Messiah. Daniel is being told what is going to happen: two more empires will arise, then the empire of the Romans – he has already been told that in the previous vision – and then comes Messiah. Messiah will feature in chapter 9, so perhaps ‘the time of the end’ refers to the end of the waiting period for Messiah. This then is about world history: what is going to happen to the world; what is going to happen to the Jews. And yet there are things said here which seem much more appropriate to the end of time. So which is right? The answer may be that both are right. The passage has its first fulfilment in the arrival of Antiochus Epiphanes and the terrible sufferings that will be meted out to the Jews. That will all be a symbol or a picture of what will happen much further down at the very end of the age.